Wally the Green Monster Crosses the Line

Mascots can get away with a lot of things, whether it's spraying opposing fans with silly string, bowling over fans to get to a hot dog or antagonizing $100 million starting pitchers. But there's still a line that can be crossed, which makes the practical joke Red Sox owner John Henry and chairman Tom Werner played on team CEO Larry Lucchino so funny. Gorden Edes of the Boston Globe explains:

"So I wanted to play a practical joke on Larry," he revealed in an exclusive e-mail yesterday. "John Henry was in on it with me. I told John to get Larry down to the field at 12:30. I put on the Wally suit (it was about 200 degrees in the suit), I walked out on the field and, after shaking a bunch of kids' hands -- isn't that what I'm supposed to do? -- I walked up to John and shook his hand.

"Then I walked up to Larry and tousled his hair. He had that look on him which said, 'What the hell are you doing?'

"I then took three rubber baseballs that I had in my hand and fired them at his head. Now he was getting extremely irritated.

"I then went up to him, started to push him, and tousled his hair again. He said, 'What is going on with you?'

"I put up my mitts and pretended to fight him. Now he was really getting angry."

Lucchino is notorious within the team for having a short fuse, which is what made him such an easy mark. There were kids around, and considering Lucchino was on the verge of scarring them for life by pummeling the unknown man inside the Wally costume to a bloody pulp, it was then that Werner finally yelled out, "Larry, it's me! Tom!"

Werner admitted that Lucchino wasn't quite as amused as he and Henry were. I'm guessing Henry is pretty much untouchable, but Werner might want to consider having an intern start his car and taste his lunch for the next couple of weeks.